


A Date with the Multiverse

by WhiteHotBlueFlame



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Brotp, F/F, For Science!, Hollstein - Freeform, Philosophy, Science, Science Fiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-25
Updated: 2015-12-25
Packaged: 2018-05-09 05:44:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5528276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhiteHotBlueFlame/pseuds/WhiteHotBlueFlame
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carmilla always loved the philosophic debate over whether time travel was possible. It was her favorite question for years, probably decades even. If free will exists, then there can be no time travel, but our choices are weighted, each one marking the person you are, who you will become, how you live and where. Then, a new question arose, one that shook the foundation of her hope that free will was the way of things. She’d always wanted to believe that her decisions held weight, each choice she made lead her one direction, splitting her off into a universe connected to her and all of the decisions she had made in her life. <i>If free will exists, could that mean that there’s only one verse in the multiverse created by my decisions, where the circumstances and decisions I have made have led me to finding true love, my soulmate?</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	A Date with the Multiverse

**Author's Note:**

> I always liked philosophy (I might be a nerd). and this seemed just so Carmilla. Oh, and I am only human. I tried to proof. if you find mistakes, let me know I'll fix them. Feel free to let me know what you think. Hope you enjoy. (originally posted on Santasgotasecret.tumblr.com as part of Carmilla secret santa 2015).

Carmilla always loved the philosophic debate over whether time travel was possible. She’d had this conversation over and over, determinism versus free will. Do our choices matter? It was her favorite question for years, probably decades even. If free will exists, then there can be no time travel, but our choices are weighted, each one marking the person you are, who you will become, how you live and where. Then, a new question arose, one that shook the foundation of her hope that free will was the way of things. She’d always wanted to believe that her decisions held weight, each choice she made lead her one direction, splitting her off into a universe connected to her and all of the decisions she had made in her life. She could feel the weight of her decisions holding her in place. 

If she hadn’t agreed to venture away from the party when she was 18, she wouldn’t have been murdered, she wouldn’t have become Carmilla. What if there was a pathway in the multiverse where the timeline only extended to the far end of a human life span in the early 1700s? Carmilla’s eyes roamed the text before her frantically. Descartes could tell her as long as she thinks, she exists. Schopenhauer could postulate that she moves and chooses based only on motive and character, both of which are tied directly to each other. But none of her readings could tell her the answer to the question kicking around in her head for nearly three decades. _If free will exists, could that mean that there’s only one verse in the multiverse created by my decisions, where the circumstances and decisions I have made have led me to finding true love, to finding my soulmate?_

Carmilla sighed, her pale hand grasping the bridge of her nose. She had been working on this particular project for around a century, she’d had no breakthroughs until she’d met LaFontaine. The ginger mad scientist didn’t even struggle with the concept. They’d jumped right on board with the idea of trying to move between multiverses immediately after they’d debated the subject of free will and determinism with her. LaFontaine never spoke in the hypothetical. They’d accepted the idea of a multiverse created by each decision they’d made throughout life. They’d never even questioned why Carmilla was so intent on finding a way to move between them. But, in the past year at the university with LaFontaine’s help and Perry’s constantly annoying mothering, they had put together a machine. 

Carmilla found herself eyeing it warily, the contraption smaller than she’d expected before nodding to LaFontaine and moving toward it. “Ok, so here’s the deal. The physics of time travel sort of apply here. I’d take hair and blood samples if you’d let me.” LaFontaine’s eyebrows raised questioningly before Carmilla glared in silence. “It would be useful to have you baseline stats to know if the jumps do anything to your atomic composition, or health. Health is probably more on the important side so I’m going with that as my reason, yeah?” Carmilla continued to glare as she folded herself into the machine with an annoyed grunt. “Ok. Nevermind. Anyway. I don’t know how it’s going to move you through the multiverses. My guess would be chronologically, working through those closest to this one and your most recent decision, which will probably be a bit frustrating, but I think I’ve figured out how to bypass the least important and most recent decisions, like getting in the machine for example. But I’m not going to set it for the first trip, so we’ll know for sure how the multiverses connect and are traveled through.” 

LaFontaine’s face was covered with muted excitement as Carmilla nodded. They handed her what looked like a watch. “You should try to limit the amount of time you stay, I think. There’s probably something inherently wrong about taking over another version of your own life in another verse. But, for science.” LaFontaine shrugged, their eyes were alight with excitement as their face was taken over by a proud grin. “This should be interesting. So there’s three buttons around the side.” LaFontaine pointed at the watch like device slowly as they explained. “Press them all at once to bring you back. There’s a fourth button.” They pointed again. “I made this to track your vitals. The fourth button is sort of a self-destruct. Last resort and all that.” Carmilla nodded, her hands shifting in a ‘get on with it’ motion. “Ok. One last thing. I don’t know how you’re going to present exactly. Oh. Nevermind you’ll see.” 

LaFontaine grinned again before looking at the computer before them, their hands flying across the keyboard. “I’m so going to win a Nobel for this. Or at least a Friedrich Nietzsche award. It’s going to be epic. I mean it’s not like I Frankenstein-ed anyone, but this is definitely a close second.” They nodded to themself, tapping a few more keys before a sound filled the room, gravelly and harsh, the computer whirring angrily. LaFontaine’s face dropped into a moment of confusion before looking up and noticing a complete lack of Carmilla in the machine.

Carmilla felt a throb in her head, she looked down at the watch blurring into her wrist in her vision. Jumping universes was hard on the body and the mind, it seemed. She blinked frantically trying to clear her vision, the spots danced and the room itself swayed, or maybe that was just her. She wasn’t sure. But she heard LaFontaine’s voice. Her annoyance built quickly. _It didn’t work. No, wait, it did._ “Come on. Why would you have me make this machine if you’re not going to get into it? It’s not like we can just send Einstein like in Back to the Future. You’ve got to try this.” Carmilla heard an exasperated sigh. “This was your idea.” She looked LaFontaine in the eye as they spoke. They were blurry, but she was positive they were speaking to her. She was literally taking over. She pressed the buttons on the watch, quickly.

Carmilla sat up squished against metal walls. “You’ve got to be kidding me!” She groaned. LaFontaine stood before their computer, they hadn’t moved in the time she’d been gone. “When you said don’t know how I’d present, did you mean that I would be them? I mean me, but in them.” She raised a hand as soon as she saw LaFontaine open their mouth to make a dirty joke, a grin sliding across their face. She leaned back against the cool metal behind her. “Shut it Ginger, you know what I mean.” LaFontaine shrugged, as they raised a hand and rocked it side to side with a softly murmured ‘eh.’ “Is it always going to be that disorienting? I mean everything was so fucking blurry and pounding.” 

Once against LaFontaine opened their mouth to add an innuendo to the conversation, but was silenced with a glare. LaFontaine shrugged with a toothy grin spreading on their face. “You ready to go again?”

“Yeah yeah. One thing. You were right.” Carmilla grimaced jokingly as she said it. “It was chronological so maybe move it along. I don’t want to have to keep hearing you try to talk me into the machine, Dr. Horrible.” Carmilla scowled. 

LaFontaine shrugged again but nodded. “Ok, how far back in your decisions do you want to go? There are probably millions of universes, though I imagine they’re really only created and continued for really important decisions. Because to get coffee or not to get coffee, we both know those two have the same result. Coffee.” Carmilla chuckled lightly. 

Carmilla’s brow furrowed as she thought. “Ok. Let’s stick to mildly important decisions. Before I met you. So at least a year ago.” LaFontaine acquiesced, their hands flying over the keyboard again. Carmilla pulled her knees to her chest in the tight quarters and waited for the inevitable. 

Two weeks. They had been gradually working through the worlds of her decisions. The further back she got the more she felt a tug. A pull in the pit of her stomach. She couldn’t decide if that feeling was due to the number of jumps she’d done, her health, or something else entirely. LaFontaine’s categorization system left something to be desired, but they were working on it. Each jump played on the edges of her nerves, but she refused to stop. She was determined. Love wasn’t something she could give up on. She’d jumped again and again that afternoon. With each jump, the pull she felt got stronger. She couldn’t explain it. Well, she could, it felt like there was a magnet in her being attracted by its opposite, that was what she felt, but what she couldn’t explain was the why. She kept telling herself to give up, the pull might be dangerous, but she found there was no resolve behind the words. Her resolve was already set on continuing. 

She folded herself into the machine again for what might have been the hundredth time. LaFontaine’s blathered quietly about publishing rights as their hands flew over the keyboard before them in a familiar pattern. They looked up with a raised eye brow waiting for Carmilla’s nod. This trip felt different. She wasn’t sure why. “It looks like this is taking you back about a year, maybe more. I don’t know. You ready?” Carmilla took a deep breath, exhaling slowly before nodding. The sounds had become old hat by now. Neither of them reacted, but LaFontaine still smiled when they looked up and Carmilla’s cramped seat was vacant. 

Carmilla was standing outside of a door, marked with 307, a bag draped harshly and heavily over her shoulder. She could barely remember this decision. But she, somehow, knew she’d walked away the last time, this time she was going in. She had to go in. Her heart pounded in her chest. She could feel the pull, growing stronger in the pit of her stomach. She took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, her hand running through her onyx locks gently. Another deep breath, she couldn’t seem to slow her heart, frantically beating the more the magnetism she felt grew. She twisted the knob and pushed. The door jammed, groaning against her. She tried again, with the same result. Finally, twisted the handle and kids the bottom corner of the door and it flew open.

The magnetic force rolled out the doorway like waves lapping against the shore. Her heart hammered. She couldn’t bring her breath to a normal pace. She took a step forward, the pull no longer something she could ignore. Her mind went completely blank. Sitting across from the door she’d essentially just kicked open, sat a girl in an olive green tank top and flannel pajama pants. Carmilla’s eyes traced the line of the girl’s seated legs up her frame to her face, landing on her strong amber flecked hazel eyes inset in lightly sun kissed skin drawn in confusion. “Uh, who the hell are you?” The girl’s voice made the magnet in Carmilla’s chest scream at the full length of the room between them. 

“Carmilla. I’m your new roommate, sweetheart.” Carmilla dropped her bag and walked forward, unaware of her feet’s intention to do so. Her heart screamed in her chest and the pull intensified tenfold. It felt like a hand was closing around her lungs and something, her eyes never left the girl, who she would come to know as Laura, in front of her, or someone, had claimed her heart while she was walking. Carmilla looked down at the watch-like device on her wrist with a grin. She twisted it along her wrist a few times before slipping it off as she moved about the room. Her finger flicked over the hidden fourth button as her eyes slid over Laura’s features and down her frame. She nodded softly, turning her back to Laura before pressing the button. It didn’t matter what this path held for her as long as it held Laura.


End file.
